Mississippi could run a small-group exchange

Mississippi insurance regulators seem to want it both ways. They’re asking the Obama administration for permission to run a small-group health insurance exchange. Just not the individual one.

But Sarah Lueck and other health policy specialists at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a non-partisan think tank often described as liberal, say a state shoudln’t be allowed to split the exchange work with the feds.

Mike Chaney, the Mississippi insurance commissioner, and the CBPP health policy specialists talk about the idea of splitting the Small Business Health Options Program exchange and individual exchange jobs in comments sent to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

CMS has already given Utah and New Mexico permission to set up SHOP exchanges while letting the feds run the states’ individual markets.

How CMS addresses the issue in other states could determine whether brokers and managers in those states deal with local exchange managers or Washington ones.